Managing the Financial Side of Commercial Fleets

Cox Enterprises Streamlines Fleet Operations

ATLANTA- Cox Enterprises is utilizing Chevin Fleet Solutions FleetWave to deliver comprehensive fleet and asset management oversight for more than 14,000 assets across North America.

As part of an overall company strategy to reduce costs and streamline processes, Cox Enterprises rolled out its new enterprise fleet management information system, FleetWave, across its Communication Division and Corporate Headquarters fleet personnel with a view to extend this system to further divisions in the future.

FleetWave enabled Cox to capture its complex and disparate fleet and operational data across all of its divisions, and then extrapolate real-time information to leverage acquisition costs and reduce fleet spend. Within the first year, it was able to use this information to promote a 10-percent fleet size reduction for its communications, media, and headquarter divisions.

This "global visibility" has put real-time performance data at fleet manager's finger tips so that any variance can be closely monitored and resources can be allocated more effectively.

The data available to fleet managers is now more accurate due to the automated consolidation of numerous information streams, which also minimizes the opportunity for human error as well as reducing administrative burden.

"Now with this information, we have been able to identify inefficiencies across the division, so we can address those issues by improving our processes," according to Serina Hardiman, fleet applications administrator for Cox. "This has enabled us to realign our strategies company-wide, in tune with what's really going on with our assets.

"Administrative hours have been significantly reduced, now that vendors have access to relevant interfaces so that they can input data. That is then automatically consolidated with our own information such as purchase orders and invoicing," she said.

"We are able to pull off accurate reports that are defined by us. Not only does this enable us to troubleshoot, but also leverage information relating to vehicle maintenance and fuel consumption to create standardized data," Hardiman concluded.

Cox Enterprises is still expanding its use of FleetWave and looking at ways to build on the current system with additional modules to further optimize fleet operations. A companywide roll-out program may soon be introduced.